GO CHEROKEE! GO CHIEFS!
Conquer the . . .
Breaking News: Cherokee runner bleeds . . . ahh . . . brown stuff?! Story soon!
On October 4, 2014, the team competed in the Shore Coaches XC Invitational at Holmdel Park and the coach insists that the unnamed runner who, in the above picture, appears to be bleeding "brown stuff" is not full of "brown stuff."
Beyond that, in the Varsity competition, Cherokee placed 4th out of 31 teams in the A Division led by the strong running of Jack Shea, Nick Falk and Justin DeTone who placed 10th, 11th and 21st in a field of over 200 runners! Mike Zurzolo, Steve Gravlin, Brendan Falzone and Noah Gil completed the scoring for the Chiefs. The JV team was led by Pritesh Prajapati and Matt Powell who both set 5K PR's! In the freshman race, Justin Kelly, was the team's highest placer, finishing in 3rd. Joe Falk also medaled, placing 22nd in a field of almost 200 runners. Matt Smith, Matt Morgan, AJ Kostyo, Jon Conn and Naledge Brown were the other freshmen scorers for Cherokee as the team finished 9th out of 18 teams!
Jack Shea was named the Runner of the Meet for dropping his PR by over a minute -- this on the most difficult course in New Jersey! -- and finishing as the team's top man! GO JACK! Details at: NJRunners/MileSplit.
Freshmen Race
Varsity
Junior Varsity
This picture was taken at Shore Coaches and the word's out that multi-tasking Coach Cal is preparing for one of these roles: (A) Reprising Spencer Tracy's role in "The Old Man and the Sea;" (B) Santa Clause at Macy's, Moorestown; (3) a bag-lady at Comic-Con, 2014; 4) you decide!
On October 11, 2014, the team traveled to rainy, foggy, drizzly but not sunshiny campus of Delsea Regional High School for the South Jersey Open where they had a very successful day!
The Varsity team placed 2nd behind state power, Kingsway, led by Nick Falk, who finished 5th in the field of 120 runners! Jack Shea and Justin DeTone both finished within the top fifteen to give Cherokee a strong start to the scoring. Mike Zurzolo, Steve Gravlin, Brendan Falzone and Noah Gil all ran their best races of the year to complete the scoring for the Chiefs!
The JV team finished 7th in a field of twenty-seven teams led by the 3rd place finish of Tyler Kurzawa! Other season-best performances were turned in by Matt Powell, Pritesh Prajapati, Derek Gotshall, Mike Algarra, Pat Mahoney and Chris Monteleone!
The highlight of the meet came in the Freshman race where Cherokee dominated the field to win with 30 points, led by the 3rd place finish of Justin Kelly! The Chiefs put three other finishers in the top 10 of the 114 man field: Joe Falk, 6th; Brandon Marks, 8th; and Mike Iannotta, 9th! Matt Smith, AJ Kostyo and Matt Morgan completed the scoring for the team, all finishing in the top 20! Other season bests were recorded by Jon Conn, Naledge Brown and Matt Zeitz.
This was probably the most difficult meet for the Coach to select the Runner of the Meet because so many ran so well! Indeed, all of the Freshmen deserve recognition . . . then you have Nick Falk who ran 59 seconds faster than he did last year at Sectionals . . . and you have almost everyone in the JV race setting season-bests, several by over a minute . . .! The Coach finally decided on Chris Monteleone because he PR'd by the most (-1:24) and he really raced hard over the last part of the race, battling another runner all the way to the finish line! GO CHRIS!
Details at: NJRunner/MileSplit.
Here are some pictures from the meet! As you'll see, the only one who had trouble with the weather was the photographer!
______________________________
______________________________
On October 17, 2014, the team traveled to near-by Mill Creek Park in Willingboro for the Burlington County Open -- the meet that determines the county championship -- and they had an outstanding day!
The Varsity squad won the county championship for the first time since 2011, led by Nick Falk who won the race to become the first sophomore champion in the 60 year history of the meet! Justin DeTone and Jack Shea gave the team three runners in the top 10 as they finished in 6th and 8th! Mike Zurzolo and Steve Gravlin were not far behind finishing in 20th and 21st, with Brendan Falzon and Noah Gil completing the team scoring in 33rd and 37th place For the record, Cherokee’s 42-point margin of victory is the largest in the County Open in nine years, since Cherokee defeated Moorestown by 53 in 2005(38-91)!
The JV team was even more dominant, winning the race with a low 21 points, a score so good that, had the rest of the county combined into one team, Cherokee still would have beaten them by a score of 21 to 37! Freshman, Joe Falk, not to be outdone by his brother, Nick, won the individual championship and led six Cherokee runners across the line in the top 10, including fellow freshman, Brandon Marks, close behind him in 2nd! Other top 10 finishers were Tyler Kurzawa, 5th; Pritesh Prajapati, 6th; Matt Powell 7th, and, freshman, Mike Iannotta, 8th. For good measure, Cherokee also had two more freshman in the top 20: Matt Smith, 15th and Matt Morgan, 19th.
Again, for the record, with his victory Nick Falk became Cherokee's 7th County Champion since Coach Shaklee took over the program: Tim Haggerty, 1995; Marc Pelerin, 2001; Keith Krieger, 2007; Alex Yersak, both 2006 and 2007; and Shawn Wilson, 2012! In addition, this victory marked the 13th time in the last 18 years that Cherokee took the County Championship! GO CHEROKEE!
There were a number of great performances but the coach "made the easy choice" for Runner of the Meet! It had to go to Nick Falk, the first sophomore to become county champ! GO NICK!
Details at: NJRunners/MileSplit. A recap focusing on Cherokee is at: Meet Recap. An article by Jim Lambert, including video interview, on NJ.com. And, finally, another Lambert article naming Nick the NJ.com Athlete of the Week. Any more of this and he'll be too giddy to run!
On October 24, 2014, Cherokee returned to Rowan College at Gloucester (AKA, Gloucester County College) for the Olympic Conference Championships. The 15-team Conference is broken into three divisions, with Cherokee in the most competitive, the American Division, but the race is a single one with all glory going to the victors! Unfortunately, the Chiefs took 2nd in the race to Conference and Division opponent Cherry Hill East, the Number 1 ranked team in South Jersey, and the glory went to them!
For Cherokee, once again Sophomore Nick Falk led the way with his 6th place finish in the field of 149 runners and earned First Team All-Conference honors. Senior captain, Justin DeTone was next for the Chiefs, in 11th place, with Sophomore, Jack Shea, not far behind in 16th. Mike Zurzolo, 24th, Steve Gravlin, 32nd, and two freshmen, Justin Kelly and Brandon Marks in 38th and 47th, completing the scoring for Cherokee!
The coach selected Brandon Marks as the Runner of the Meet for his 40-second PR and his first time finishing in the team's top 7 Varsity! GO BRANDON!.
Details at: NJRunners/MileSplit.
